


Operation Snowbound

by RedTeamShark



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: (More like sharing two sleeping bags), Clint and Bucky Being Sniper Bros, Gen, Gift Fic, M/M, Mission Fic, Platonic Relationships, Sharing Body Heat, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In, Winterhawk Wonderland 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:27:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27916732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedTeamShark/pseuds/RedTeamShark
Summary: The mission is a simple job: tag a convoy as it drives through the pass and then skedaddle back down the mountain. Easy enough that Clint could do it in his sleep. And he doesn’t even have to pull the trigger, that’s what Bucky’s there for.Until an unexpected weather event leaves the two of them stranded on a mountainside in a blizzard, battling the cold, Clint’s taste in coffee, and Bucky’s idea of idle conversation.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes & Clint Barton, James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 10
Kudos: 54
Collections: Winterhawk Wonderland - 2020 edition!





	Operation Snowbound

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HeartonFire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartonFire/gifts).



> This fic is part of the [Winterhawk Wonderland 2020 Gift Exchange](https://winterhawkwonderland.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> I used the prompt "Snowed-In Together" from HeartOnFire, and I hope you enjoy the story! <3

The job was comically simple, especially for _two_ Avengers. All they had to do was tag a convoy as it slipped through the narrow mountain pass, mark it so that the intercept team could track it. It was an in-and-out, do-it-in-his-sleep job, in Clint’s humble opinion.

And he was goddamn _spotting_ for it.

He’d been griping about that since the coin flipped, seen Bucky’s smirk turn into a frown--not that he’d offered to give up the specially outfitted rifle that would shoot the tracking beacon. Clint eyed it enviously as Bucky folded it up and put it into a case, tossing his bow and his specialty arrow heads into their own case.

“We’re not going to need that,” Bucky noted, nodding to Clint’s bag. “It’s a one shot job.”

“What can I say, I like to have options.” Clint grinned easily, pointing to Bucky’s bag of supplies. “Besides, you’re the one that packed three knives for a no-enemy-contact mission.”

Bucky opened his mouth to counter, but Tony’s voice cut him off.

“Eyes front, you two, Steve’s getting ready to make a speech.”

Steve shook his head, leaning over the holographic display on the table. “Just a last rundown. We expect them to pass through here,” an area highlighted in red, “in two to four days. Our best vantage points are here, here, and here,” three spots pinged green, “but we don’t know how accessible they are. You should have time to check them out before the convoy comes through; find the best one and be ready.”

“Weather reports for the area are sketchy at best,” Tony added, swiping away the topographical display and instead pulling up a flatter weather map. “There’s a slim possibility of a storm closing the pass before they get to it. If so, you’ll have to hunker down and wait it out until they get there. Hope you packed your long underwear.”

“Jokes on you, Stark, I didn’t pack _any_ underwear,” Clint muttered, feeling more than hearing Bucky snort beside him. “Let’s get this show on the road. We tag the convoy, you guys intercept it and be the big heroes, prevent the end of the world, et cetera and so on.”

“There’s one more thing,” Steve said, his voice grave, his eyes locked on Bucky. “We got intelligence from Natasha about an hour ago that Hydra may be at one end of this deal. We don’t know for sure who’s moving the goods, just that their name has come up, but… be careful.”

“It’s a no contact mission, Steve. I’ll be fine.” Bucky’s words were steady, his eyes on Steve’s face, and he seemed completely believable.

Too bad Clint was close enough to notice the way his left fist briefly clenched and released.

* * *

Somehow he hadn’t equated ‘possible snowstorm’ with ‘really fucking cold’ when Tony had been talking.

Clint huddled deeper into his jacket, his hands pulled as far into his sleeves as he could get them while still carrying his bow case. They’d been dropped off about three miles from the pass, had a ninety minute walk through the woods to their first potential vantage point, and even with the tree cover the wind was slicing right through him.

Beside him, Bucky didn’t seem to be faring much better. His face was set and grim, his eyes blinking frequently against the cold gusts of wind. They hadn’t had a lot of lead time, a lot of time to scout the area for a sturdy base, and Clint was seriously regretting not packing a thicker sleeping bag. God, if they had to sleep outside...

“Damn, I should have been a better boy scout,” he hissed, shifting his bag on his back. The balancing act of carry-in-carry-out and don’t-freeze-to-death certainly hadn’t landed in his favor.

Bucky snorted a short laugh. “I can’t picture you as a boy scout.”

“No? Maybe you’ve just never seen how good I am with knots, then.” Clint grinned, before another gust whipped through the trees. The sky was getting dangerously dark for early afternoon, building storm clouds threatening overhead. He glanced up uneasily as the sound changed, the first spits and sputters of icy cold rain starting to fall. “I’ll demonstrate once we get to camp.”

They moved faster, found the first vantage point of the pass and dropped their supplies. Clint pulled out his binoculars, settling into a decent nest and checking the view. “Fuck,” he whispered, rolling to the side, passing the binoculars over to Bucky. “Tree cover between us and the most open part of the road. Do you think you can still make the shot?”

Bucky laid quiet for a moment, gazing down the distance to the mountain pass. He pointed his left hand out, before shaking his head. “I want to say yes, but we should probably check the other two spots.”

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t say that.” Clint shouldered his pack again, pulling his phone out and checking their GPS signal with numb fingers. “There’s one more potential on this side of the pass, a quarter mile up. The third one is on the other side, half a mile back.”

There wasn’t any other option. Well, there was half-assing the job, but if they screwed it up they’d never hear the end of it. The world’s two best snipers, not even able to tag a caravan? _No one_ would let them live it down.

The rain was getting heavier, colder, starting to turn to icy slush around their feet, and the tree cover was thinning as they climbed higher. By the time they found the second vantage point, it was less rain and more stinging ice pellets falling from the sky.

Laying himself out on the cold, wet ground was an immediately regrettable decision, and Clint’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking as he held the binoculars. He frowned, set them aside and tucked his fingers into his armpits, trying to get some warmth back into them. Wet, cold, miserable, but even without the magnification, he was pretty sure this was going to be the spot. He picked up the binoculars again, took a steadying breath and looked. Even through the wind-whipped rain, it was… “Perfect.”

Bucky dropped down beside him and took his own look, nodding. “Have to account for the wind, but that shouldn’t be too hard. There any nearby shelter on the map?”

He double-checked his waning phone battery, nodding once. “There’s a spot marked cabin not too far away. That should be good.”

‘Cabin’ might have been overselling it--it was closer to a lean-to, made up of three walls and a roof that sloped all the way to the ground. There was a wood stove on one side, a single bunk on the other, and newspaper stuffed into the cracks 

It was warm, though, and they found a decent stack of wood for the stove outside, sheltered from the rain--rapidly transitioning to snow--in a stand of spruce trees. Whoever owned this place seemed to be the real boy scout. Clint changed out of his wet clothes into his back-up, hanging the wet ones up near the stove for the morning.

The best thing he’d found among the cabin’s few supplies in his perfunctory search was an old kettle and some dusty mugs. Clint melted some slush to wash it all off, then melted more to start boiling water for as close to actual coffee as they could get. He’d brought instant coffee for the mornings, but apparently pouring the packets directly into his mouth was ‘disgusting’ and prompted people (Natasha) to ask ‘what the fuck is wrong with you?’ News to him.

“You want coffee?” Clint asked as Bucky came back in from securing their perimeter. They’d have to alternate patrols, make sure no random park rangers found them up here. Couldn’t be too safe, when they weren’t entirely sure who they were _really_ up against.

“You brought _coffee_ on this mission?” Bucky moved to the bunk, sitting down and starting to unlace his boots.

“Well, I have snow melting and instant coffee to mix with it once it’s hot.”

The other man made a face. “That’s not coffee, that’s a crime against caffeine.”

Clint rolled his eyes. “You’ve been spending too much time with Nat. Starbucks is not the be-all, end-all of coffee.” He poured up two cups, passing one over before taking a seat. It was thick as mud and tasted vaguely smokey, but it was warm in his hands and his mouth. The little cabin was dark even before the sun had fully set, only the orange glow of the stove lighting them up as the wind whipped and shrieked outside. “Hopefully this storm doesn’t trap us up here too long…”

Bucky nodded, taking a drink of his coffee and drawing his knees up, arm wrapping around them. “It’d be pretty awful to have to eat you.”

“Wh--why would I get eaten?!” Clint sputtered, turning a wide-eyed stare on him.

“Well, I still need to be alive to tag the convoy. You’re just the spotter.” There was a note of teasing in Bucky’s voice, though his face was impassive. “Kind of the expendable one on this mission.”

“Fuck you, I’m a valuable member of this team and also I probably taste horrible.” He elbowed Bucky lightly, gritting his teeth against a grimace as a tingling sensation shot up towards his shoulder. Damn metal arm… 

“Only one way to find out.” Bucky leaned in a little closer, his face splitting with a grin. “You’ve got more muscle than Steve had when we were kids, so you can’t even claim to be too scrawny to have any nutritional value like he used to get away with.”

“You think about cannibalism a lot?” Half continuing the joke, half a genuine question. Outside of missions and public record--and the whole Winter Soldier mess that he’d had to sit through an extended debrief on--Clint didn’t know all that much about Bucky.

“Not as much anymore. But sometimes when it’s cold and you’re that hungry…” Bucky shrugged. “You start wondering.”

“I don’t know if normal, well-adjusted people do, actually. Then again, I don’t know any normal, well-adjusted people.” They were still sitting close, shoulder-to-shoulder and sharing body heat. It was cozy, for what it was. Even having to share the small bed space, bundled together in their sleeping bags, wasn’t the worst. Bucky ran hot, Clint found out within minutes of being under the fleecy sleeping bags with him, and despite the plummeting temperature outside, their little camp out nest was warm and secure.

Waking up in the morning to inches of fresh snow and more falling rapidly from the sky, however, was less than ideal.

“Fuck,” Bucky said, almost good natured. He stared out at the heavy, wet snow, at the little arc of it he’d cleared when opening the door. “We’re going to have to find a way to cover our tracks if this doesn’t melt.” Bucky took a seat, putting on his boots before pulling his coat on. “I’ll scout down to our sniper position, try to find a clear path. You get in touch with Stark and see what the status of the pass is. Tell him he’s a terrible weatherman.”

Clint nodded, pulling his own shoes on--flat running shoes, because he was, in fact, an idiot sometimes--and digging in his pack for his phone. Signal up here was spotty at best and he wasn’t looking forward to the idea of climbing an iced-over tree just to get a few more bars.

It took some wandering through the snow--thoroughly soaking his shoes and socks--and spinning in a few circles, but eventually he got enough signal to place the call. Tony’s voice was tinny and hazed out by frequent static, but he managed to convey the relevant information.

The storm was bad, rain at low elevations transitioning to ice and then snow. The pass was closed for at least three days, probably more. Steve was ready to call a mission abort and try again some other time, though everyone was reluctant there. Natasha had gone in deep for this information and they weren’t going to have a better window in the foreseeable future.

“We can handle this,” Clint said, hoping that his words were true. “We’ve got shelter and we’re not far from our position, less than half a mile. I’m going to shut my phone off to save the battery, be out of contact for three days, but if you can lock our location and drop some more supplies, that’d be great.”

“Like coffee?”

“Mostly coffee. Maybe some food, Bucky’s already talking about cannibalism.”

They shared a laugh before the call cut off. Clint gave his dead phone a disappointed shake, tucking it back into his jacket and making his way back to their little cabin. “Just like being a boy scout, sure.” He snorted, ducking inside and restoking the fire, warming his numb fingertips by it. After almost an hour, Clint got up again, pulling on his jacket and his wet shoes and pushing against the wind to get the door open and get outside. Where the hell was Bucky?

There were no tracks leading to the sniper perch they’d found the day before. The snow was still wet and heavy, and it was falling in thick flakes, coating the ground in fresh inches. He trudged through it in about fifteen minutes, slowed down and eased towards the spot as he got closer. Clint whistled between his teeth, a short birdcall of a warning, and after a moment, Bucky jumped down from a tree and landed smoothly in front of him, his descent almost silent. Any movement in the branches was covered by the gusting wind.

“Show-off. Come back to camp, Tony says the pass is closed for at least three days.”

“Explains why there hasn’t been a vehicle through all day.” Bucky shouldered the specialized rifle on his left arm, his right hanging limp at his side.

Clint squinted at him, reaching forward and touching his fingertips. They were icy-cold and eerily white. “You’ve just been sitting up in that tree in a snowstorm? Jesus Christ… come back to the cabin and warm up.”

“I’m fine. This is nothing.”

He shook his head, taking Bucky’s hand--cold and stiff, chilling him almost immediately--more firmly in his own and leading him back through the woods. “Nice try, tough guy, but you’re not getting hypothermia on my watch. And there’s no reason to sit around up here when the pass is closed.”

Three steps into following him Bucky froze, pulled his hand away and turned back. “What if they don’t wait for the pass to open and we miss them?”

“They’re trying to be covert. They aren’t going to blow through barriers and put some backwater cop on their tail. We have at least three days and if things change, Tony will get in touch.” He shook his head, reaching up and almost gingerly turning Bucky’s head back to face him. “Also, you’re useless if you die of hypothermia. Seriously, I’m not lugging your ass down a mountain.” Even if their target tried to sneak through while the pass was closed, it’d be suicide to do so in a storm like this. 

Bucky blinked at him, some clarity returning to his eyes. He shivered once, before settling his hand in Clint’s again and letting himself be led back to the cabin.

Inside, Clint assessed the damage as he helped Bucky strip his wet clothes off, hissing in a breath. He was shivering, but Bucky hadn’t after the first one the whole walk back. Not a good sign. Clint loaded the wood stove up as much as he dared and tucked Bucky under the sleeping bags, before stripping himself down to just his boxers and climbing in with him.

“What--”

“Body heat. Need to warm you back up and unless Stark drops us a hot tub, this is the best way we have.” He took Bucky’s hand between his, rubbing his fingers briskly. “At least your boots are insulated, but seriously man, what were you thinking?”

“I…” Bucky bit his lip, ducked his head down under the blankets. “I didn’t want them to get away. If it’s Hydra. I wanted to be ready to stop them.”

“Yeah, well, you ain’t gonna stop shit if you freeze to death.”

The words were almost too quiet for Clint to hear. Almost. “Been there, done that,” Bucky mumbled, yawning. He twisted with a full-body shiver and Clint let the mumbling pass in favor of a grin.

“Shivering’s a good sign, means you’re starting to warm up. I don’t remember if you’re supposed to sleep when you have hypothermia or if you’re supposed to stay awake.”

“Because you’re a shitty boy scout.”

He laughed, let Bucky have that one. “Yeah, if I was a better boy scout, I’d have used my rope skills to tie you up in here so we didn’t get into this mess in the first place.”

Quiet answered him, the warmth of Bucky’s steady breath against his bare chest. Clint worked his fingers gently, watched them turn from dead white to rosy pink to inflamed red. He hoped that was a good sign, just like he hoped the heat he could finally feel in Bucky’s fingertips was a good sign. Clint rubbed up his arm, over his back, across his chest--anywhere he could reach. He let his legs tangle with Bucky’s and pulled him in tighter, stroked his hair out of the way to check on his ears and the tip of his nose. A little flushed, but no worse for the wear, not really.

“Clint Barton, shitty boy scout, saves another one,” he whispered, bumping his forehead against Bucky’s and closing his eyes. It was too early to sleep, but there wasn’t much else to do. Tony wouldn’t drop supplies in a blizzard. He’d nap, he’d let Bucky warm up, then they could eat some ration bars and make more instant coffee. Figure out the rest of the plan from there.

* * *

Three days later, Clint used one of the battery packs Tony had dropped in to charge up his phone. He turned it back on, almost dropping it as it started to immediately ring. “Yeah, Tony?”

“Convoy is on the move, you have an hour.”

“ _What_?!” The sharp word made Bucky look up from making breakfast, and Clint tapped to put the phone on speaker. “I thought the pass was still closed!”

“Closed for three days, Clint!” Tony shot back, sounding just as harried. “Day one, when we spoke, day two, then day three was _yesterday_. They reopened the pass at eight this morning!”

“Fuck.” The word echoed as Bucky repeated it, giving up on breakfast and moving to yank his boots on. Clint shoved his feet into his sneakers, the phone call abandoned.

“We are the worst boy scouts,” Bucky muttered, shrugging on his jacket and shouldering the sniper rifle. “The _worst_.”

“This is going to go into Tony’s blunder hall of fame like that time Cap got his shield stuck to a mannequin,” Clint agreed, mumbling around the gloves he was holding in his mouth as he zipped his jacket. At least Tony had dropped him some warmer clothes.

“He got his shield stuck to--tell me later.”

They hustled from the cabin, abandoned a warm breakfast in favor of ration bars eaten while they ran. At their nest--thankfully clear of snow, a task they’d stayed on top of during the storm--Bucky scrambled up the tree with the modified rifle across his back, settled into his sniper’s perch and braced the rifle.

Clint moved a little ways down the route, dropped into his own low to the ground perch and pulled out his binoculars. They’d put a tarp down to keep him from getting soaked again, but the ground was still rock hard and ice cold. Clint settled his ear piece in place, tapping it to turn it on. “Audio check.”

“Audio check,” Bucky agreed in his ear.

“Sightlines?”

“Clear.”

They settled in to wait. It wasn’t going to be very long, their mad scramble to get here had left them with, at most, half an hour until the convoy would be through. Assuming Tony’s timing was right.

According to the mission brief, the vehicle they were looking for was one of a set of four, three decoys and the actual. The signs that it was carrying weapons and not nothing were going to be subtle, thus the need for two snipers. One to pick out the target vehicle, one to tag it.

Clint heard them before he saw them, the sound of heavy diesel engines echoing up the narrow pass. A snow plow first, bright orange with a flashing light leading a trail of vehicles, pushing the heavy, wet snow out of the way and laying down sand behind it for those that didn’t have chains on their tires. He adjusted the focus on his binoculars, frowning. “Hey, Bucky.”

“Yeah?”

“Recognize that logo on the plow?”

There was quiet, before Bucky snorted. “You gotta be shitting me.”

Stark Industries snow plows, running diesel and clearing the way for some scumbag weapons dealers to make a sale. Tony was going to have a conniption. “Flip a coin for who gets to tell him when the job is done.”

He could hear the smirk in Bucky’s voice. “Sure. You realize you’ve lost every coin flip we’ve ever done, right?”

“Fuck.”

He scanned each car that passed, chewing his lip as the minutes ticked by. There was a whole line of them, and nothing screamed ‘international terrorist cell’ just yet. Mostly pick-up trucks and mid-sized sedans, the types of vehicles that belonged to average civilians.

“I miss the days when our targets were all in really obvious, logo’d humvees,” Bucky sighed.

“Or ominous black SUVs with dark tinted windows,” Clint agreed softly. “Hey, wait--”

One, two, three, four pick-up trucks in a row. Tinted windows, caps over the beds, and while they weren’t black, they were all muted shades of blue and dark gray. Clint adjusted his binoculars again, looking through the windshield of the first one. Two men with a gun mounted between them, wearing black tactical gear rather than winter coats or flannel. “Got’em, four pick-ups coming up.”

“Just tell me a number.”

Clint scanned each vehicle as they approached, his heart beating harder but his body still by comparison. His eyes flicked over each one in turn, taking notes, mentally measuring, estimating the weight of what was in the bed of each truck. They knew it was a high powered weapons deal, knew that the group Natasha had infiltrated were accepting black market bombs from someone, possibly Hydra. 

“Number three,” Clint decided as the convoy approached them. The snowplow and line of traffic had slowed the pass to a crawl, one gift horse he _definitely_ wasn’t going to look in the mouth. He focused on the third truck in the line, saw the small shift of rust and road salt as the tracking beacon hit home. After that, the beacon was all but invisible.

“Locked,” Bucky announced over the comms, sighing. “Now we just wait for them to pass and then break up camp and wait for pick up.”

“Dammit, I didn’t anticipate having to lay here on the ground all morning.” His griping wasn’t too serious, though. Clint continued to study the vehicles, just in case there was back up.

They were the world’s best snipers, they’d be able to handle it. Even if Tony and Steve were going to take all the public glory for this one.

“So…” Bucky started as the minutes ticked by, a seemingly endless line of cars moving through the pass below them. “Mannequin?”

Well, there was nothing else to do. And he liked hearing Bucky laugh, if he was being honest with himself. Clint had gotten to hear it a few times over the last three days, and if he got another one--well, one more success on top of the mission.

“So picture this,” he started, eyes still trained on the line of cars. “Mall of America, surrounded by giant alien rats…”


End file.
